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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Recent Comments

Comments 24501 to 24550:

Bob Loblaw at 11:46 AM on 24 May 2016

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

billev: "I made no reference to the fact that those temperatures are obviously subject to the effects of other factors."

Yet such a conclusion is the logial consequence of your statement that you expect "that temperature rise should be continuous like the steady, and accelerating, rise of CO2 in the atmosphere". You can't evade the logical consequences of your position by saying "I didn't say that". If you agree that your original statement is in conflict with your actual position, then please say so.

As for measurements showing how temperatures since 1910 can be attributed to various factors, please look at the graphs in comments 2 (author's response) and 23, and read the text that describes them. In fact, read the entire chain of comments.

barry1487 at 09:17 AM on 24 May 2016

Climate denial arguments fail a blind test

Remove the political context and just deal with numbers. Good one.

ubrew12 at 02:34 AM on 24 May 2016

2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #21

The article 'Far from turning a corner, Global CO2 emissions still accelerating' contains a graph showing current CO2 at 400ppm and 'CO2+nonCO2 GHGs' at 500ppm. This second line may hit 560ppm (a doubling from pre-Industrial 280ppm) within the decade. Am I correct in assuming we are, within the decade, essentially 'locked in' to the equilibrium climate sensitivity of 1.5C to 4.5C? If so, this seems a critical argument to start making.

billev at 02:06 AM on 24 May 2016

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

When I say contiuous warming I am referring to those parts of the NOAA graphs of Global mean temperature from around 1910 until the early 1940's and from about 1974 until around 2002. I made no reference to the fact that those temperatures are obviously subject to the effects of other factors. There is currently a World wide debate over whether or not to move from the use of fossil fuels in order to reduce the production of carbon dioxide because it is causing global warming. What measurements have been made to show how much of the amount of temperature rise since around 1910 can be directly attributed to the rise in carbon dioxide levels?

Moderator Response:

[TD] Click the Intermediate tab in this post.

MA Rodger at 21:55 PM on 23 May 2016

It's cooling

Concerning Vietnam's mid-winter snows @298, I did think to have a quick look into GHCN data to check out the most recent winter temperatures. Cao Bang was the station I hit upon, in the hills north of Hanoi at 800ft altitude. The NOAA data (spoilt a bit by an evident data entry error for Jan 2016) shows January 2016 was colder than recent years for its Mean Min Temp (colder than 2011 but not as cold as 1963). The data does show Januarys have been getting colder over the last few years (still not as cold as the 1960s) but the winters have also been getting shorter with Novembers & Marchs getting warmer.

The NOAA data also gives Lowest Min Temp for each month, so we can see at 800ft we come very close to the snow line in January with lowest temperatures dropping below 40ºF in half the Januarys (dropping to 32.7ºF in 2014, & below freezing in 1995). Mid-winter snowfall higher up in the mountains of Vietnam thus should be quite normal.

denisaf at 15:14 PM on 23 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

This is a typically misleading anthropocentric discussion. The stark reality is that irreversible rapid climate disruption and ocean acidification, pollution and warming is under way largely due to the operations of industrialized civilization. The most that society can possibly do is to make decisions to slow this physical process slightly by reducing the use of fossile fuels as rapidly as is practical while adopting measures to cope wth such unintended consquences as sea level rise.

pattimer at 07:05 AM on 23 May 2016

Ocean Oxygen – another climate shoe dropping

A really thought provoking article here and thanks for that Howard. Not only is exceesive nutients caused naturally by a warming world with more precipitation but due to the Haber process we are at the same time considerably adding to this excess.

Bob Loblaw at 06:45 AM on 23 May 2016

The things people ask about the scientific consensus on climate change

In addition to Glenn Tamblyn's comment (mentioned in the moderator's response above), I have also responded to billev's latest comment over here.

Bob Loblaw at 06:41 AM on 23 May 2016

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

Argggh. On editing, after a failed attempt to post, I missed the links to biilev's original comment. It is here. The thread is on this post.

Bob Loblaw at 06:38 AM on 23 May 2016

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

Glenn's post immediately above this one is in response to several comments by billev over on this thread. In billev's last comment, he said:

If the CO2 caused energy imbalance is the reason for the Earth's temperature rise then that temperature rise should be continuous like the steady, and accelerating, rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.

I am wondering, billev, just exactly what you would accept as convincing evidence that CO2 is having an effect. From the statment quoted above, it would appear that you want to see no variation from a continuous rise in temperature. That is a suprising expectation, because for it to be true, then rising CO2 would have to have two effects:

It would have to have an effect that causes an increase in global surface temperature.
It would have to have an effect that prevents any other known causal factors from also affecting temperatures over the period in question. That would mean:

reductions/increases is solar radiation could no longer cause reductions/increases in temperatures

increases in volcanic activity and resulting aerosols could no longer cause surface cooling

El Nino/La Nina cycles could no longer cause variations in global surface temperatures

changes in global albedo resulting in increased or decreased global absorption of solar radiation could no longer cause variations in temperature

changes in orbital parameters affected received solar radiation could no longer have an effect on climate

...and any other factors - either known or unknown - that used to affect global temperatures could no longer have any effect.

That would make CO2 one heck of a dominating factor, and it is so unreasonable that I think that such a belief falls into the category of "Impossible Expectations" in the five characteristics of science denial:

FLICC

...but that may not be what you intended to mean, billev, when you made the statement I quoted above. If not, please feel free to expain further just what you expect in the way of evidence - what would convince you?

BBHY at 21:51 PM on 22 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

I was reading a related article over at ThinkProgress, "media-downplays-climate-science".

Looking at the comments to that article, I have to wonder if those people are using Skeptical Science in the opposite way that it was intended. They have pushed just about every counter argument from the list over here, and just disregarded that they have all been thoroughly debunked.. I see "The consensus is false", "There were ice ages in the past", "It's a liberal hoax", "It's a trace gas", etc. They have them all.

I would like the think that regardless of the persistent deniers/skeptics and poor media coverage, most of the populace has moved beyond the reach of these many falsehoods, but then there is still the congressional majority party that is not on our side.

Glenn Tamblyn at 15:06 PM on 22 May 2016

CO2 is not the only driver of climate

billev

Following on from the previous post here.

This topic is about the other driving factors behind climate so worth reading first.

Firstly, a smaller point, the rise in the earths heat content may not be monotonic because there is a seasonal cycle. The earth absorbs more sunlight during the southern hemisphere summer when the darker (all that ocean) southern hemisphere is pointed more towards the sun This seasonal cycle may be large enough to overwhwlm the warming from CO2 etc for a year or so, thus on a seasonal scale the rise may not be monotonic. However the rise in total heat content should be roughly monotonic on timescales of multiple years.

Then there is another assumption you are making that isn't correct. You are assuming that the temperature change, thus the heat accumulation, will all happen in the atmosphere and that thus the atmospheric temperature should rise nearly monotonically. However less than 2% of the aded heat is going into the atmosphere; most, around 93%, is going into the oceans.

At the same time there are internal energy transfers that occur between the atmosphere and the oceans and since the oceans have hugely more thermal mass than the atmosphere a small flow from the oceans to the air, relative to the heat capacity of the oceans, can constitute a significant change in temperature for the atmosphere. As a result, atmospheric temperatures are a very 'noisy' signal; variations due to this internal variability can mask any underlying trend for significant periods, and the resulting temperature rise, of the air, won't be monotonic. The standard timescale defined by the World Meteorological Organisation to be used to detect climate changes in the atmosphere is 30 years. Running averages over 30 years or so should show roughly monotonic change. Anything on significantly shorter timescales would be more fortuitous, depending on the vagaries of internal variability.

There is another approach. Since most of the extra heat is going into the oceans, we would expect the heat increase there to be roughly monotonic. And it is.

This is the heat increase of the top 2000 meters of the ocean, which is a bit over half its volume. Apart from a seasonal signal you can see it is quite monotonic. A few dips associated with volcanic eruptions in 1982 and 1992, and a dip around the time of the big El Nino in 1998. Also some variation during the 60's but instrument coverage back then wasn't very good and there was likely some significant aerosol cooling before the various Clean Air Acts started clearing up air pollution. But since then, broadly, it is very monotonic. And in fact, the rate of heating is increasing, which is what we would expect with CO2 levels rising.

Alun at 10:57 AM on 22 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

400ppm is seen by many as being so small as to be irrelevant. I find I can get most people to pay attention to the fact that low concentrations can be important by pointing out that if we had HCN at 400ppm, there would be no life on earth. The issue isn't the concentration, but what happens at this concentration.

Tom Curtis at 07:15 AM on 22 May 2016

It's cooling

John Hartz @301, the article was written on May 17th, and therefore was grotesquely exagerrating when it says, "Sydney is almost FIVE DEGREES ABOVE AVERAGE for a whole month". That may yet be the case, although that is unlikely.

Moderator Response:

[DB] A note to all participants: 'sam' has recused himself from further participation here, finding the burden of complying with this venue's Comments Policy too onerous.

Tom Curtis at 07:11 AM on 22 May 2016

The things people ask about the scientific consensus on climate change

joeygoze @13, I have yet to see a scientific paper reference Newton's laws of dynamics, or of optics, or the laws of thermodynamics (except, for the later, for those written in the very early 20th century or earlier). Even such recently developed theories as plate tectonics are not referenced in papers discussing issues centrally related to it (eg, orogeny). In similar manner, it would be astonishing to find a modern climate science paper referencing that CO2 is a major driver of climate, or that changes in CO2 concentration have a direct impact on global mean surface temperatures unless the paper was from an entirely different field (where assumption of such basic knowledge cannot be made), or where the reference is not for the fact of influence, but for a specific estimate of the value of the impact.

The reason for such lack of referencing is that these are examples of 'text book knowledge', ie, facts that are so well established in the field that it can be reasonably supposed that anybody in the field (or for Newton's laws of dynamics and optics, any scientist) will know them, and have an approximate idea of their origin. They are also facts which are simply accepted as a matter of course - about which there is a consensus.

In general, specific referencing indicates that the fact in question is either controversial within the field, or specialist knowledge which is probably only known to a very few members of a sub-discipline. In the example of orogeny, things which are probably well known to specialists in Chinese orogony, but not to experts in orogony in general, let alone all geologists are referenced. Consensus, as measured by a lack of need to reference, trails the real consensus among experts because textbooks trail current knowledge - but it is real, and is relied on in science, for if scientists had to reference everything they would never get anything done.

Wol at 06:04 AM on 22 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

When all's said and done, and the professional deniers and the conspiracy theorists are taken out of the equation, the fact remains that the public at large is hopelessly ignorant of anything to do with science. The bookshop shelf space devoted to faith healing, crystal therapy, homeopathy etc is usually multiples of that on scientific subjects - even when the former is not on the science shelves.

So many people look at a half degree of warming and take a similar attitude to it as those who argue that 400ppm is such a small amount it can't possibly have any effect. I can't see how any amount of education can get around this mindset.

Kiwiiano at 05:48 AM on 22 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Researchtony: "This is where the contradiction lays. If CO2 increases do we life better and longer as the dinosaurs lived, happy and lush environments, or do we all die from extreme heat etc."

Obvious...across equatorial regions we die of extreme heat as they are in India currently with 50ºC days and while it may be lusher in middle & high latitudes we just have to wait out the many 1000's of years of very erratic weather for soils to reestablish and the biosphere to adapt.

Good luck with that....

Tom Dayton at 04:44 AM on 22 May 2016

The things people ask about the scientific consensus on climate change

joeygoze, reference to and acceptance of previous scientific publications is "consensus."

joeygoze9259 at 01:23 AM on 22 May 2016

The things people ask about the scientific consensus on climate change

Back on topic, there is a clear issue about if a consensus has any place in scientific process? The question was asked, "wouldn’t every experiment have to reestablish every single piece of knowledge from first principles before moving on to something new?" Point being the justification to rely on a consensu.

Although it is true scientific papers do NOT reestablish every piece of knowledge, when writing and publishing journal articles, we certainly do reference prior work to support the arguments and experimentation going forward. It is improper to begin a scientific journal article as "everyone believes X" and therefore, we move on to the next hypothesis, experimentation and conclusion. The "everyone believes" is not science.

A properly written scientific article, using Global Warming as an example, would be like the following and part of the Abstract/Introduction section of a scientific journl article.

"Current global warming theory dictates that CO2 has been a major driver of climate change throughout the 20th century (Ref, ref, ref, ref, ref). A variety of studies demonstrate CO2 forcing has a direct impact to global mean temperatures (ref, ref, ref, ref, ref)....."

There is no need to invoke a consensus, the prior body of scientific literature supports the new paper. There is no need to reestablish all prior knowledge, you just properly reference it.

John Hartz at 01:04 AM on 22 May 2016

It's cooling

More inconvenient facts for Sam to digest...

As the world warms, the weather is changing in ways far more dramatic than a little extra heat there, a little less rain there.

Entire weather patterns are shifting, and we're already seeing the results in Australia this autumn.

First up, some dramatic statistics to illustrate the unprecedented Australian temperature anomalies being experienced in Australia this month. Then we'll hear from an expert on why it's happening.

Sydney is a whopping 4.9 degrees above average for May. Sydney's average May daily maximum temperature is usually 19.5. The average is 24.3 degrees so far this month.
One more time for emphasis, Sydney is almost FIVE DEGREES ABOVE AVERAGE for a whole month. Wow.
In fact, the Sydney maximum has topped 20 every day in May so far. Tuesday hit 28. The COLDEST day of the month was 1.3 degrees ABOVE the average.
Hot streaks do not usually last this long. Not even close.
Melbourne temperatures are also way up this month. It's May 2016 average of 20.3 degrees (to date) is 3.6 degrees above the long term May daily average of 16.7.
It's a similar picture across Australia. Canberra is nearly four degrees above average so far this May, Hobart and Brisbane three degrees, Adelaide nearly two degrees, and Darwin and Perth both one degree.
The fact that it's much warmer than usual across Australia is very much in keeping with the long term Australian trend (depicted below), as well as global data showing that the world just had its hottest ever seven months — and its hottest April by a huge margin.

Sydney And Melbourne Copping Record May Heat. The Reason Why Is Scary by Anthony Sharwood, Huffington Post Australia, May 17, 2016

One Planet Only Forever at 00:41 AM on 22 May 2016

What Sir David King gets wrong about carbon pricing

sauerj,

I am thrilled to learn that some of the GOP supporters of CFD did sign the pledge. I am hopeful that there are a significant number of "signers in appearance only", meaning they only signed it because of the threat of disinformation campaign marketing attacking them for not signing it.

I am actually hoping that some of the GOP "signers of convenience of the Pledge" will start to argue for more rational considerate taxation of the richest to reduce taxation on the less fortunate and for the delivery of support to the less fortunate who need assistance to live a decent basic life while changing to using more responsible and unavoidably more expensive energy.

More responsible and considerate ways of doing things are guaranteed to be more expensive and difficult than getting away with less responsible behaviour (and defineitely be less rewarding for the ones currently getting the most benefit from those understood to be unsustainable damaging activities). Getting the GOP (and Democrats) to openly admit that challenging fatal flaw of the marketplace of popularity and profitability is a key step to getting leadership that effectively advances global humanity to a lasting better future for all (rather than people in positions of power and influence trying to abuse disinformation marketing to create appearances while striving to get a better present for only a portion of humanity, or boldly promoting selfish greed and intolerance, to the detriment of the future of humanity).

geoffrey brooks at 23:54 PM on 21 May 2016

What Sir David King gets wrong about carbon pricing

Carbon taxes have to be paid by the ultimate user. A simple way to collect these taxes (in the US) would be to add $1 a gallon carbon user tax to gasoline, nationwide.

Natural gas's carbon tax should be assessed at 900BTU/cu ft, which is equivalent to 115,000BTU in a US gallon of gas...or 1 cent per cu ft.

Electricity is rated at 3400BTU/kw - so the % of energy generated by burning carbon would be taxed at 3 cents/KW.

I also think that there should be a 100% tax penalty for using electricity generated by burning dirty dangerous coal - so that proportion of a homeowner/electricity users bill would be assessed at 6 cents/KW.

The public power companies provide charts telling us where the energy come's from (coal, natural gas, renewables). The public utilities should be paying an ADDITIONAL carbon tax (not passed on to the users) for every KW they generate from coal.

Carbon taxes for a better world...

Alun at 23:32 PM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Scientists do have to challenge the PR spin of the stock market behemoths. If they don't, the behemoths just get their boys appointed to run the research and then the quality scientists get sacked.

Challenging media coverage on specialist sites is helpful for ensuring that interested parties know what to challenge, but it is of no use in educating the population and politicians. They don't read these sites. Expanding these services to deal with the mainstream media is what is needed and scientists doing it directly too.

Joel_Huberman at 23:12 PM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Scientists already are providing feedback about media coverage of global warming issues. ClimateFeedback.Org hosts comments from multiple climate scientists about important media articles. This important group is currently trying to get crowd funding so that it can expand its media coverage.

Eclectic at 22:21 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Thanks for that info, MA Rodger.

Sam's ideas and claims are certainly a joke.

As to Thailand, Sam links us to a blogger in Bangkok [ww.iamwannee.com] who goes on to say that April 2016 was "sweltering" [unquote] and seemed like "the hottest year ever" [unquote] .

It seems clear that Sam doesn't check his sources, and doesn't apply any common sense. And accepts any second-hand "denier" guff that comes his way.

MA Rodger at 22:18 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Ooops! I spot @298 that I missed the link to this loudmouthed fantasist which makes my use of a demonstrative pronoun open to alternative interpretation.

MA Rodger at 20:33 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Eclectic @295 & Michael Sweet @296.

There is basically folk out there like this loudmouthed fantasist using YouTube to feed any fool who is willing to listen. His Jan 2016 report is here. His Jan 2015 report of snow 300km NE of Hanoi here. The altitude of these events is likely a requirement of the snowfall. Hanoi has a January climate reported as 19ºC (max) & 15ºC (min) so add 4,000ft @ 3.3ºC drop per 1,000ft and snow in a cold winter is a distinct possibility. I did think to look out an SE Asia temperature record from BEST which show a lot of year-to-year variability but they stop in 2013 so Jan 2015 & 2016 could have been as cold or colder than Jan 2011 which (for minimum temperatures) was the sixth coldest on a record stretching to 1853. (The record cold-min Jan was 1930 with 1963 in second.)

sam13501 at 19:57 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

http://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/6194-photos-video-northern-vietnam-has-frozen-over

http://saigoneer.com/vietnam-news/6228-nghe-an-records-first-ever-snowfall,-300km-south-of-hanoi

it may have been early feb instead of march but it was a first ever in that region, there was also a first ever in Taiwan, Kuwait and Guadelup caribian and a few other places.. in February there was a cold that moved into se asia

http://www.iamwannee.com/weather-in-bangkok-thailand-in-february-2016/

I may have gotten the dates wrong it was late january and then middle of Feb, here is some snow in taiwan in Feb.. but in SE Asia its usually very hot already as of late Jan, mid Feb.. and actually in 2011 there was a rare cold condition that left bangkok, all of Thailand and the rest of se asia in March:

http://www.thai-blogs.com/2011/03/17/it-shouldnt-be-so-cold-in-thailand-in-march/

michael sweet at 19:45 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Sam,

According the this news article from Vietnam, it was the first time they had snow in that area of Vietnam for 40 years. Before that it occasionally snowed, it was not close to their record cold. It has not snowed in the last 40 years because it is warmer from global warming You are claiming that non-record cold is unusual when cold like this was normal 100 years ago. cartoon

I will also point out that most of your claims are of snow, not record cold. It can snow when it is not record cold. Since you are interested in the USA, so far this year there have been 23,000 hot records and only 6,000 cold records source. You have picked some of the minority of cold incidents.

Your recollection of Russian temperature records is once again false. Russia provides temperature data to the scientists who track global temperatures. You are just making things up.

Eclectic at 18:24 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Sam @ 294 , the "foot of snow 300km south of hanoi [sic]" was something being reported for January 2016 and in the mountains.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the reports . . . but you should note that Vietnam is in the Northern Hemisphere where January = winter. Also please note that it is far from unusual to get snow on mountain-tops . . . especially in winter.

Really, Sam, your comments are becoming sillier and sillier.

bozzza at 17:35 PM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

It's not a scientists job to take on the stock market behemoths .... The people lead so where is the onus on the people?

..nice try but no cigar I'm afraid!!

sam13501 at 17:33 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

You mentioned SE asia earlier and according to your source, 'on the average, hot record broke, etc.' I will take your sources with a grain of salt if you don't mind but that's irrelivant. Mini-ice age conditions like 1816 are characterized by winter conditions that arrive when they are not supposed to be there, like May or September, and it is in that way that they ravage crop production. You mentioned SE Asia earlier and that there were hot records broke and a high average etc. But if you look up at my list:

March 2016: Vietnam had 1 foot of snow 300km south of hanoi.

This is interesting because March,April is SE asia's summer-it is when the sun is directly over that region, so that is 1 foot of snow-in the summer-in the tropics,deep in the tropics.. Thailand was also hit by that cold spell leaving everyone scratching their heads as to what was going on.

We do not have an accurate record of exact specific temps from the previous MIA period, we just know from the history books what the weather patterns were.. maybe some records were broke or are these averages or records being influenced by localized heat island effect from human activity..that's your ongoing debate with skeptic scientists- Roy Spencer [
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/10/hottest-year-ever-skeptics-question-revisions-to-climate-data/ ] or whoever, WUWT people..

admittedly that debate is beyond me, to study and pik that stuff apart is beyond my comprehension.. admittedly maybe you are right about that but anyone who has looked at this issue even in passing; can see that endless debate; i think its your comfort zone to make that argument; but that's not my argument.. Is it normal to have snow in the middle of May snow in the tropics etc. of cource thats not normal! since about 2010 those incidents are increasing as the solar minimus preogress.

Eclectic at 14:38 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Yes, Sam @ 292 , and have you noticed that India has recorded a record high temperature in this month of May? A scorching 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit ( 51degreesC ) in north-west India. That is a scorcher indeed - making Maine & Vermont look quite temperate.

Returning to USA April, the north-west was very much hotter than usual. And Alaska . . . Alaska showed April as 10.0 degreesF above the 1925-2000 average figure.

That's ten full degrees hotter, Sam. Or 5.5 degC if you're scientifically inclined [which I gather you aren't] . To quote NOAA : "parts of the Yukon River observed the earliest ice break-up on record and Fairbanks observed a record early 'green up', or start of the vegetation growing season.

Some extra snow in a small part of the USA is looking rather trivial, in comparison.

Worldwide for April, there was cooler than average weather in the Patagonia region and the Quebec region. The rest of the world was hotter than average. Sam, for land area, that's about 99.8% warmer, versus 0.2% cooler.

Sam, your argument looks ridiculous and a nonsense.

citizenschallenge at 14:16 PM on 21 May 2016

Climate scientists, mourning Earth's losses, should make their voices heard

Good thoughtful article, I hope it touches many scientist.

I'm not one, just a life long passionate observer. For better than a half century I've watched the wonderful progress of Earth sciences leading to astounding breakthrough and insight. Always resolving an even clearer and more fascinating understanding of Earth's, and our, life story. As the destruction of our biosphere has gone from bad, to horrendous, to deadly.

We certainly have turned a fateful corner, and most the people out there, have no conception of what our planet is all about. Worse, they simply don't care, insecurity and faith in dogma satisfy them. Until an appreciation of Earth and how we were born of her permiates their daily awareness, nothing will change and governments will continue making wars, rather than dealing with what's heading our way.

Please better convey our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine as a real entity, not abstract sets of figures and theory. Help people appreciate the profundity of our biosphere, help them see past the postcard shallowness most possess.

And if that fails, as it has for decades,

Perhaps it's time to start, turning in and focus on like minded. Start quietly networking (Why quitely?, because there are a lot of very angry, even vengeful folks out there.) with like minded and giving up on those who want to make you enemies. It'll would probably demand some pragmatic paradigm shift. ~~~

_______________________________________________________

Back to the hopeful and striving to convey our planet as an real living entity, Robert Hazen has done and excellent job. It's a good example of presenting complex science in a clean comprehendable fashion.

Check it out, he's gone beyond lectures this year: LIFE'S ROCKY START - (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o6ovoaLFic

Cheers,

PS. Who says understanding Earth’s Evolution is irrelevant?

sam13501 at 13:36 PM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

I remember reading once that the NOAA doesn't have access to Russia, so they model the climate there?

Anyways here's the latest on the hottest May ever.. I already assuming that in a few weeks I'll see something in the news declaring May the hottest ever..

May 16, 2016: 4to7 inches of snow in Maine-record breaking snow for May, New England record spring snowfall 6+ inches, Vermont, PA, Michigan, Ohio 3+ inches, Tennessee US Highways closed because of Ice + snow. This is the first time there has been snow in Maine this late, last time was 1972 but that was may 2nd.. this is past middle of may. Vermont snow record for may broke by 15X.. Ohio snow during this years marathon.. Michigan cities all get snowed,not since may 13, 1912 have they had snow and that was .01 inch.. this time it's 3 inches.. Strange 'snowpellets' in PA, odd type of snow,hail combination not before seen.. Wisconsin cold and snow record broken, 5" Snow in Montana and WY, Waterloo and Dubuque Iowa record cold, Dallas FtWorth record cold.

NE USA and Canada-glaciated during an ice age-experiences very cold conditions during a min-ice age.. solar minimums are creating the mini-ice age weather pattern.. I think I said this before..AGW or co2 warming does not stop for example, the elnino/lanina weather pattern, ie:it doesn't 'cancel' the lanina so that you get 2 elninos in a row instead of a normal elnino/lanina. If it can't 'cancell out' a 'little' weather pattern like a lanina, then why would it 'cancell out' a BIG weather pattern like a MIA? It won't, this thing is coming, it's coming hard and fast and we're looking at serious cold related crop damage from now thru the early 2020's as we get to the bottom of solar cycle 24..we then have somerecovery in the mid 2020's prior to the maunder minimum starting in the 2030's AND with volcanic activity already high we could have a big one like a pinatubo at any time, if/when that happens we're realy screwed!

nigelj at 13:02 PM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Zoli

The raw data and adjusted data for global temperatures for the last 50 years are almost identical, as per the graph below which shows both.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/truth-about-temperature-data.html

researchertony at 12:44 PM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

I'm a bit of a hobby researcher kind of guy here. Love science and also the bible. Was looking for any trace of that global flood and found something we all need to look into. The two say life was different, both say environment was changed. I have found many parallels in geology and biblical records. For now let's leave bible out. but it does have the last word, the biggest clue we badly need. Learned about polar forests and polar animals that once lived in both ends. Some say there was more greenhouse gases that made a free ice earth at that time. They think the changes happened over long periods of time. Yet others tell us if temperatures increase it will be the next mass extinction event. Only in the polar areas do we find this changes. It is thought that in later times (Pliocene) the earth was warmer (THE SECRET OF ANTARTICA –VIDEO). This is where the contradiction lays. If CO2 increases do we life better and longer as the dinosaurs lived, happy and lush environments, or do we all die from extreme heat etc.
If the bible is right, the kind of greenhouse environment needed for change the earth for the better does not now exist. The kind we will get from our CO2 we make today could very well kill us all just as they say. Just because the earth was once a paradise of lush plant and animal life, does not mean it could get back to that without divine help. There is where the answer to the contradiction lays – the bible.

Before and now

Tom Curtis at 09:20 AM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Kevin C @3, GISTEMP no longer shows the absolute temperature offset with their data, although they did up until January 19th of this year, when they showed an offset of 14 C. That is also approximately the absolute temperature for the interval 1951-1980 (the GISTEMP baseline period) shown by the IPCC in this graph (thick black line on right hand section):

That estimate is based on Jones et al. (1999), Surface air temperature and its variations over the last 150 years, Rev. Geophys., in which an uncertainty of plus or minus 0.5 C is given, according to a more recent paper by Jones (Jones and Harpham (2013) Estimation of the absolute surface air temperature of the Earth, Geophsycial Research: Atmospheres). That paper in turn estimates that "The absolute surface temperature of the world is likely to be between 13.7 and 14.0C for the 1961–1990 period and 13.9 and 14.2C for 1981–2010." Assuming a normal distribution, that comes out as approximately 13.85 +/- 0.3 C for 1961-1990, and slightly lower for the GISTEMP baseline period of 1951-1980.

barry1487 at 07:59 AM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Zoli, you can get the raw data and do the graph yourself. Skeptics have done it and come up with the same result as the Met Office, GISS, NOAA and the Japanese Meteorological Association.

BEST is a project run by critics of AGW. Same results. Here's a link to the work done by other skeptics. They get more warming than the Met Office. Read the commentary.

First the obvious, a skeptic, denialist, anti-science blog published a greater trend than Phil Climategate Jones. What IS up with that?

https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/thermal-hammer/

Multiple groups have done the analysis using raw and adjusted temperatures. This part of the debate is over. The raw data is available for anyone to try and do it better.

Kevin C at 07:11 AM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Zoli: There's no secret. It's just the way the Met Office do the calculation. If you subtract the mean temperature for a station from all the readings for that station before you construct a global average, then you eliminate most of the effect of stations appearing and disappearing, which would otherwise swamp the temperature signal.

You can test this for yourself using the tool described in this post. If you hit 'select all' then 'calculate', you get a reasonable estimate of the temperature record. But if you turn off the 'align stations' option (bottom left), you get nonsense. (We can tell it is nonsense by doing a cross-validation test.)

Now it is possible to do the temperature calculation with absolute temperatures, but rather harder. UKMO don't do it at all (and nor do I). But you can get absolute temperatures from either NASA/GISS or Berkeley (land temperatures only). For the GISS data, the offsets to turn the relative temperatures into absolute temperatures are at the bottom of the file. For Berkeley they are at the top.

Alternatively, reanalysis products also produce absolute temperatures. From this page click the show/hide link next to ERA-interim, select 'temperature - 2m/10m', the 'Select Field' button at the top, and then the 'Make time series button' at the bottom of the first box.

The absolute temperatures have a significant annual cycle, which obscures the climate signal. The simplest way to address this is to convert to annual averages. Here are the annual averages for the ERA-interim data:

Zoli at 06:23 AM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

We got a vague graph again. Everybody shows only changes but never the raw data. Met Office on the link writes only about changes, too. Why every study keeps the original temperature values in secret?

Can anybody give me a link with the annual global average temperature values? A simple search didn't help.

John Hartz at 05:49 AM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Sam: More facts for you to ponder...

According to the NOAA monthly temperature report (for April), much of Russia and Alaska witnessed temperatures of at least 3.0°C (5.4°F) or greater above average. South America, Africa, and Asia (with an exceptional heatwave in Southeast Asia) also had record high average temperatures.

The April globally averaged sea surface temperature was 0.80°C (1.44°F) above the 20th century monthly average, the highest on record.

According to data from NOAA analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during April was 890,000 square miles below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest April Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 50-year period of record.

April continues record temperature streak, WMO* Press Release, May 20, 2016

*World Meteorlogical Organization

Tadaaa at 03:28 AM on 21 May 2016

Lord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change

Good article, thank you for taking time to write it

the world will look back in wonder at why these articles needed to be written in 2016!!!

MA Rodger at 01:28 AM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

Sam @284/7.

You certainly take the prize for obtuse referencing. A YouTube interview that you once heard about which was about a theory used as the basis for a Hollywood move? The following will likely not help you one bit but for correctness sake...

The work that led to Michael Mann being interviewed last year is likely Rahmstorf et al (2015) “Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean over turning circulation.” (Here)

And a paper that more dramatically considers the impact of melt waters on regional temperatures is the discussion paper Hansen et al (2016) “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2ºC global warming could be dangerous.” (PDF).

Do note however that neither fit with your considerations of 'mini-ice age' conditions or solar minimums or frosty US weather.

The film you mention does apparently have a small role in climate science in that it is the exemplar of “scientific misinformation in movies” that it is said to have prompted Schmidt & Mann to create the RealClimate.org website.

John Hartz at 01:12 AM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

sam:

You wrote:

... in short I am interested in global cooling and mini-ice age so i asked about any information on the theory that co2 or manmade warming can create a very cold spell.

The scientific body of evidence about the impact of increased CO2 levels on the global climate system does not support such a theory.

In addition, the surface atmosphere of the earth is but one component of the the global climate system — see the SkS Glossary for details.

John Hartz at 01:01 AM on 21 May 2016

It's cooling

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